TMNT Artisan Edition #1 Hardcover

[TMNTooze]

“This book reproduces all the original art to the first issue of one of the most important comic book phenomenons of the last 35 years — The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Scanned directly from the original art, mimicking the experience of the original hand drawn page, and also collecting all the layouts (also hand drawn) by the creators…”

This is up for pre order with Amazon ($41.90) and Target ($31.45). Released 5/30/17.

[The Fifth Turtle]

I'm not into these "the making of" type books, but I can't say no to this one.

[Mewzard]

I've had this preordered for a while. It sounds amazing. Always down to support something awesome like this.

[DK2]

Yeah IDW's just milking the cow out of Eastman's and now it seems Laird's archived material on some of these upcoming HC making type books. There's also gonna be one for the Eastman/Laird Mirage Studios covers coming as well. That one may just be of interest to me. Always thought they're covers were really good colored and full cover spreads. But hows this TMNT #1 HC besides the extra layouts, any different than the 8th anniversary Mirage TMNT #1 HC/TPB from 1992? Wouldn't that be the same version? It had no duotone shade if I'm not mistaken. The look of the original pages as they said back then.

[myconius]

Amazon finally posted a 'look inside' preview of the book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1631408976/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

at the moment Amazon's pre-order price is $25.46

[The Fifth Turtle]

Originally Posted by myconius

Amazon finally posted a 'look inside' preview of the book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1631408976/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

at the moment Amazon's pre-order price is $25.46

****ing gorgeous.

Wish they'd stop delaying its release and get it published already.

Thanks for the update!

[Ninjinister]

There's some things in this rough draft that I didn't know. Shen was originally Mandy? Judo club? lol. Shredder avenging his father instead of his brother?

[Mayhem]

I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that there were multiple sets of thumbnails made for issue #1 here. Those features are definitely different to the ones I own. I presume Mandy is picking a Westernised name when in exile?

[myconius]

Originally Posted by The Fifth Turtle

****ing gorgeous.

Wish they'd stop delaying its release and get it published already.

Thanks for the update!

you're very welcome!

yeah, i've been watching the Amazon page like a hawk for any updates.
when i finally peeped inside at the preview my jaw dropped!!
i can't even describe how TOTALLY STOKED i am for this book!!!

Originally Posted by Ninjinister

Shredder avenging his father instead of his brother?

that would have been really interesting.
though i guess they didn't want too much of an age gap?

[Btown]

already had mine pre ordered but damn this makes me even more excited for it. This looks like its going to be a beautiful book.

[funatic]

Mine just came in the mail! Cracking it open now...

First impressions:
- Pretty awesome to see the original layouts for such an iconic issue of comicdom!
- The scans all seem the slightest bit fuzzy, or maybe just light on ink? Only noticeable if you scrutinize it, might be because they're preserving the sort of off-white original paper tone.
- Has issue 1 ever been printed this BIG before??
- Little section in the back with some old promo posters and character model sheets, around half of which I hadn't seen before. Wish there were a few more extras. Surprised they didn't include the first turtle sketch.
- All in all a pretty nice presentation of book that's been reprinted a million times.

EDIT: Just read in the nice little intro by Kevin that a lot of the pages from this issue were originally done 8x12 since they were trying to stretch their DuoShade dollar. Wow never knew that! Makes the art even more impressive in retrospect, and maybe explains why these scans (which are a bit larger than 8x12) look a little less than 100% crisp.

[Ninjinister]

Originally Posted by funatic

- All in all a pretty nice presentation of book that's been reprinted a million times.

Pretty much my thoughts. I do love the prototype names used in the original draft though. Before the previews for this book I'd never seen them

[funatic]

Originally Posted by Ninjinister

Pretty much my thoughts. I do love the prototype names used in the original draft though. Before the previews for this book I'd never seen them

Lol did you catch when Shredder refers to someone as Bubba?

[MrPliggins]

Received my copy yesterday. I love how the duoshade pages are printed at actual size. What a large book! Also it's cool to see the original art for the cover.

[myconius]

this probably one of my favorite reprints of Mirage #1 yet!!

the large print is gorgeous!!!!!!

plus i absolutely love the rough draft pages!!!

so beautiful!!

Originally Posted by funatic

Lol did you catch when Shredder refers to someone as Bubba?

yeah that was TOO funny!!!
gotta love Eastman's off the wall humor!

[CyberCubed]

So would you guys say this is worth it? A lot of positive responses in this thread, I didn't order this because it just seemed like yet another reprint with some bells and whistles. So it's worth it? I'll order it right now.

[Mewzard]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

So would you guys say this is worth it? A lot of positive responses in this thread, I didn't order this because it just seemed like yet another reprint with some bells and whistles. So it's worth it? I'll order it right now.

Well, it's a large hardcover release of Issue 1 of Volume 1 of Mirage's TMNT comic with three variants (Layouts, Inked, and Final Product), an intro by Kevin Eastman, and a bunch of promotional material in the back.

I certainly think it was worth it.

[funatic]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

So would you guys say this is worth it?

Worth is so subjective, but it's exactly what you say:

yet another reprint with some bells and whistles.

and exactly what Mewzard says:

Originally Posted by Mewzard

a large hardcover release of Issue 1 of Volume 1 of Mirage's TMNT comic with three variants (Layouts, Inked, and Final Product), an intro by Kevin Eastman, and a bunch* of promotional material in the back

*(around 7-8 pages of bonus material.)

If you think that sounds worth it to you then go for it!

[myconius]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

So would you guys say this is worth it? A lot of positive responses in this thread, I didn't order this because it just seemed like yet another reprint with some bells and whistles. So it's worth it? I'll order it right now.

believe me. it's TOTALLY worth it!

[OA]

Just so cool seeing these pages in their original forms. It's interesting, those of us who own some pages from the early books, how while it faithfully reproduces the look of those real pages, it's still lacking the feel of the comic art boards. Which is to be expected of course. The Duo-tone effects are also much richer in person than it appears in the book, but again, to be expected.

I do wish for a bit more commentary, outside of the 2 page intro. We all know the story of how the TMNT came to be, the paradoy, etc....but I would have loved to hear more about how they crafted the actual story. The bonus pages in the back were nice, but nothing that has not been previously published somewhere along the way before.

Overall happy with this book and hope they do more like it.